The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for determining fuel burning efficiency in hydrocarbon combustion articles by determining the carbon monoxide, oxygen and, in one embodiment, hydrocarbon emissions in the exhaust of the article being tested. The present invention is capable of indicating the probable cause of inefficiency, and providing the information necessary to correct defects, thereby increasing the efficiency of the article tested.
Hydrocarbon combustion articles can be the source of many undesirable gas emissions, automobile gasoline engines being of primary concern due to their extensive use in modern society, while hot water heaters and furnaces produce emissions which produce undesirable effects in the home. In attempting to diagnose hydrocarbon combustor faults by the use of tailpipe emissions on combustors such as automobile engines, it is difficult to isolate the causes of high hydrocarbons. High carbon monoxide emissions can be readily isolated to carburetion problems and prior art has developed many ways to isolate these difficulties. For high hydrocarbon emissions, prior art has indicated an approach which involves first sensing the presence of high hydrocarbons with a gas analyzer, then attempting to isolate whether high hydrocarbons are due to poor carburetion or to ignition failure with a scope tester. In high volume testing, as is required by several states concerned with automobile emissions such as the state of California, the testing agency is responsible not only for pass/fail testing, but also for diagnosis of the cause of the emission failure. The time required to connect and disconnect a scope type ignition tester requires additional man hours which increases testing cost. Therefore, accurate fault diagnosis is difficult in this program. Present art requires that the carburetor of the automobile engine be adjusted in order to isolate whether the fault is occurring in the carburetor or the ignition system. Furthermore, once the fault is determined to be in the carburetor or the ignition system, further isolation is necessary to isolate the faulty carburetor and/or ignition circuit. In addition, it is not currently possible to determine how out of balance a multibarrelled carburetor may be if it is the source of the high undesirable emissions.
In determining the efficiency of home hydrocarbon combustors such as hot water heaters, there is no simple method or apparatus in present prior art. After years of use, home hydrocarbon combustors may have lost their initial efficiency and this loss will remain unnoticed except for an increase in dirt sediments located near the home combustor.